GENEVA (AP) — The U.N. refugee agency said Friday it has received reports of horrific abuses being committed in Mali, and it anticipates up to 700,000 more people will be forced to flee their homes in the next few months because of military clashes there.

UNHCR staff members are relaying stories of "witnessed executions and amputations," and tales of large offers of money to civilians who will fight against the French-backed Malian army and its supporters, agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.

Reports of the use of child soldiers among the al-Qaeda linked Islamist groups and disappeared family members also are surfacing, she said.

The stories were recounted by some of the 265 Malian refugees who crossed into Burkina Faso in the past several days from Intahaka, N'Tillit and Dorage towns and surrounding areas in the Gao region of northern Mali.

The refugees said they fled the recent military intervention, the lack of any means of subsistence and fear of the strict application of Sharia law, Fleming said.

"We have been hearing horrific accounts from refugees in the neighboring countries," Fleming said.

"They reported having witnessed executions and amputations, and mentioned that large amounts of money are being offered to civilians to fight against the Malian army and its supporters," she said. "Disturbingly we are also hearing accounts that there are children among the rebel fighters. People spoke of family members having disappeared."

The agency is planning for the additional displacement of up to 300,000 inside Mali and 407,000 more refugees flowing into neighboring countries.

It is urgently reinforcing its teams across the region, she said, as thousands more refugees flee to Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger, Algeria, Guinea and Togo.

Already during 2012, around 200,000 people fled their homes in northern Mali and are on the move within the country, while 144,500 Malians fled to neighboring countries because of instability, the agency says.